Gene Woodard is a man on the move. The director of the Building Services Department at the University of Washington used to joke that he might be one of the few people who has been in every bathroom on the UW’s Seattle campus. “Then I realized the plumbers probably have me beat there,” he says. [...]

Continue Reading →

Somewhere along the way to hauling yet another five-liter jug of water up to her second-floor room in a small village high in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains, Kristi Straus decided enough was enough. She paused and looked around, reflecting on the community of subsistence farmers with whom she’d spent the past two years as a 22-year-old Peace Corps volunteer. “The people [...]

Continue Reading →

Much as museums might make it seem, the past is not static. Its inhabitants no less frozen in amber or suspended in action poses as part of some done-up diorama than the scene outside your window at this very moment. Indeed, if there is one constant throughout history, it’s that humans move. In the process, [...]

Continue Reading →

Upon earning her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Columbia University, what Wadiya Udell wanted most was to give back to first-generation students in a small liberal arts college atmosphere like the one she had experienced as an undergraduate at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts. She had her eye on just the place. Perched high atop [...]

Continue Reading →

If you want something done, do it yourself. But if you want something done right, do it together. That’s the driving ethos behind Zoe Barsness’ work as chair of the Faculty Senate, the legislative body of faculty consisting of 122 elected senators who, together with the president, formulate regulations and procedures that govern and guide [...]

Continue Reading →

Will DePaolo studies bacteria, but his science goes viral. The associate professor of medicine’s videos exploring the bacterial science behind everyday objects have amassed millions of hits on BuzzFeed and led to appearances on The Today Show, but DePaolo, the director of the University of Washington’s new Center for Microbiome Sciences and Therapeutics (CMiST), says he [...]

Continue Reading →

All librarians like a good challenge—Linda Di Biase perhaps more than most. Three days a week, Di Biase serves as the eBook and collaborative collection strategy librarian in the University of Washington’s Collection Analysis and Strategy Department. When she’s not building and analyzing library collections or helping PhD students access hard-to-find documents half-way around the [...]

Continue Reading →

Growing up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Kathryn Topper thought she wanted to be an astronaut or astrophysicist. That was until tenth grade, when she fell in with a different crowd. This group made a habit of gathering late into the night to talk, sing, and drink—sometimes making a competition of flinging dregs of wine [...]

Continue Reading →

When the University of Washington Husky football team victoriously stormed the field at the 1991 Rose Bowl in Pasadena, thousands of dreams were fulfilled. In the same moment, more than 1000 miles away in a garage in Montana, another was born. Basked in the glow of his parents’ television set, reveling in the Huskies’ newly-minted [...]

Continue Reading →

Naomi Macalalad Bragin teaches dance. But you won’t find her teaching only steps. She’s more interested in what’s happening off-stage—underground and in the street. The assistant professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington Bothell is a performance ethnographer whose work places her at the convergence of dance, pop [...]

Continue Reading →

To deliver the perfect presentation, prepare to embrace your mistakes. That’s the philosophy Tim Essington brings to Applied Improvisation for Science Communication, a course the professor of aquatic and fishery sciences developed to help scientists more confidently and effectively communicate their research. “Giving a good talk isn’t just what you put on your slides, it’s [...]

Continue Reading →

For Michelle Martin, the Beverly Cleary Professor for Children and Youth Services at the University of Washington’s Information School, reading’s best lessons aren’t found in the book, but in the binding. “Sharing books is as much about relationship building as it is about skill development,” she says of literature’s connective quality. “There’s a difference between [...]

Continue Reading →